At Microsoft's pre-E3 conference yesterday, when the company lifted the lid on the launch date and price for their new console, the Xbox One, we were treated to a closer look at one of Xbox One's exclusive titles, Quantum Break. When the game was announced at the Xbox One reveal event a few weeks ago by way of a brief teaser trailer, we were excited enough, given the pedigree of the studio making it. With story driven games like Max Payne and Alan Wake under their belt, it was a safe bet that Quantum Break would be similarly plot heavy - although we doubt anyone saw their plans to link the game with a live action TV series, which through some technical wizardry, will shape its story based on how you play the game and the decisions you make - and vice versa - delivering a unique, personalised version of the show to you.
Demoing a trailer of the game running "in-game", Microsoft teased a few more details about how Quantum Break will work. Slightly worryingly, the title is billed as an 'experience' rather than a 'game', but the plot at least seems to be coming together nicely. While much of the story is still under wraps, we do know that players will take control of Jack Joyce, who, in true superhero origin tradition, seems to have been given time manipulation powers following some kind of experiment-gone-wrong which killed his brother. It's up to Jack, and you, to save the world with your newly acquired skills before time literally runs out.
In the E3 demo, we saw one of Jack's new manipulation powers - the ability to pause time, at least in 60 second increments. Entering a room, we see a woman suspended in mid-air, being thrown from an explosion that's left shards of glass and a incoming ball of flame similarly motionless in what appears to be an apartment block of sorts. Brushing his way past the glass, Jack grabs hold of the woman's arm, which pulls her out of the temporary stasis, and returns at least her time to normal. The explosion still sits at the end of the room, threatening to resume its destructive path, as Jack tries to calm the frantic woman, who it's revealed is a doctor down. He only has a few seconds left to get her out of there before the explosion continues. If time hadn't' stopped when it did, the woman would have been killed.
Sadly, there are no new screenshots either, so we'll just have to make do with this shot of a man walking through a burning building.
While it's unclear whether Jack will be in true control of his powers, or if they'll happen almost randomly in the game, it's certainly an intriguing concept. If the game's put together with decisions and branching storylines, this could be a game with a huge amount of replay value, as you rewind certain days over and over to try out all the possibilities.
Rather disappointingly, there was no more detail offered yesterday about the TV series aspect of Quantum Break, which sounds like it'll be a major part of how the game's story comes together. Whether it'll be shown over Xbox Live on-demand, or on a digital TV channel is also unclear, and will determine how well the TV/game tie-in works. Plus of course, we've yet to see more than a few split seconds of actual gameplay so it's hard to tell whether Quantum Break has what it takes to shine. Still, from the tantalising footage we've seen so far, coupled with developer Remedy's past successes, we can at least expect Quantum Break to be a stylish and action packed addition to the Xbox One's initial line-up when it arrives later this year.
